NASA is building a probe to be splashed down in the Kraken Mare, the largest sea on Saturn’s great moon, Titan. It is one of the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial life in the solar system, but the surface is unpredictable and dangerous, requiring the probe to contain artificial intelligence software. To this end, Melissa Shepherd, a brilliant programmer, has developed "Dorothy", a powerful, self-modifying AI whose true potential is both revolutionary and terrifying. When miscalculations lead to a catastrophe during testing, Dorothy flees into the Internet.

The Lost Island: Gideon Crew, Book 3

Gideon Crew, brilliant scientist, master thief, is living on borrowed time. When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. Gideon's task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security. Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon steals the parchment - only to learn that hidden beneath the gorgeously illuminated image is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks.

The Forgotten Room: A Novel

New York Times best seller Lincoln Child returns with a riveting new thriller featuring the charismatic and quirky Professor Jeremy Logan, renowned investigator of the strange and the inexplicable, as he uncovers a long-lost secret experiment only rumored to have existed.

Impact

A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater. A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing.High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars and it appears to have been activated. Sixty hours and counting.

Blasphemy

The world's biggest supercollider is locked in an Arizona mountain. The Torus was built to unlock the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of heaven?

Blue Labyrinth

A long-buried family secret resurfaces when one of Aloysius Pendergast's most implacable enemies shows up on his doorstep as a murdered corpse. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect murder, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased. The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California's desolate Salton Sea, which in turn propels him on a journey of discovery deep into his family's sinister past.

The Kill Switch: Tucker Wayne, Book 1

The mission seems simple enough: Extract a pharmaceutical magnate from Russian soil. But nothing is as it appears to be. A desperate call thrusts Captain Tucker Wayne and his stalwart military dog, Kane, into a frantic race to rescue the brilliant-but-deluded Abram Bukolov from a cadre of skilled assassins. Hunted and betrayed at every turn, Tucker and Kane must discover the truth behind a horror out of the ancient past that can be weaponized to terrorize the modern world. As time rapidly runs out, the deep and intimate bond between dog and soldier will be tested to the extreme.

The 6th Extinction: Sigma Force, Book 10

A remote military research station sends out a frantic distress call, ending with a chilling final command: Kill us all! Personnel from the neighboring base rush in to discover everyone already dead - and not just the scientists, but every living thing for 50 square miles is annihilated: every animal, plant, and insect, even bacteria. The land is entirely sterile - and the blight is spreading. To halt the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must unravel a threat that rises out of the distant past.

Ice Station Wolfenstein: Order of the Black Sun, Book 1

Sam Cleave, reporter for a small newspaper, has seen better days. After his partner was killed during an undercover investigation, he lost his passion for work and living. But when a resident of a nearby assisted living home is tortured and murdered in a barbaric manner, he starts investigating. He is especially intrigued when a mysterious box is given to him that belonged to the dead man, but he needs help to interpret what it means.

The Lincoln Myth: A Novel

New York Times best-selling author Steve Berry returns with his latest thriller, a Cotton Malone adventure involving a flaw in the United States Constitution, a mystery about Abraham Lincoln, and a political issue that’s as explosive as it is timely - not only in Malone’s world, but in ours. September 1861: All is not as it seems. With these cryptic words, a shocking secret passed down from president to president comes to rest in the hands of Abraham Lincoln.

Deep Sea One: Order of the Black Sun Series, Book 2

After barely escaping the perilous expedition to the Antarctic to locate a WW2 Nazi Ice Station Dave Purdue once more elicits the help of historian Dr. Nina Gould and award winning investigative journalist Sam Cleave. When the maintenance submersible from Purdue’s oil drill, Deep Sea One, goes missing off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea, he discovers the wreck of a sunken WWII German submarine beneath.

Death Match

The Thorpes were the perfect couple: young, attractive, and ideally matched. But the veil of perfection can mask many secrets. When the Thorpes are found dead in their tasteful Flagstaff living room, having committed double-suicide, alarms go off in the executive offices of Eden, Incorporated, the worldwide matchmaking phenomenon that uses its astonishing artificial intelligence to create supercouples and guarantee its customers just one thing: lifelong happiness.

Ghost Ship: NUMA Files, Book 12

When Kurt Austin is injured attempting to rescue the passengers and crew from a sinking yacht, he wakes with fragmented and conflicted memories. Did he see an old friend and her children drown? Or was the yacht abandoned when he came aboard? For reasons he cannot explain, Kurt doesn't trust either version of his recollection.

Utopia

Rising out of the Nevada canyons, Utopia is a theme park so technologically advanced as to be awe-inspiring. But serious mishaps are starting to cause concern, and things turn from bad to worse when a group of mercenaries infiltrates the park's computerized infrastructure, holding the entire park hostage. The engineer who designed the park now must find a way to save it.

Gideon's Corpse

A top nuclear scientist goes mad and takes an innocent family hostage at gunpoint, killing one and causing a massive standoff. A plume of radiation above New York City leads to a warehouse where, it seems, a powerful nuclear bomb was assembled just hours before. Sifting through the evidence, authorities determine that the unthinkable is about to happen: in ten days, a major American city will be vaporized by a terrorist attack.

Terminal Freeze

In this riveting new thriller, Lincoln Child weaves together a stunning Arctic landscape, a terrifying mythic creature, and a pervasive mood of chaos and fear. With Terminal Freeze, Child demonstrates why he has become a major best-selling author, and why his novels electrify and enthrall so many.

The Solomon Curse

There are many rumors about the bay off Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Some say it was the site of the lost empire of the Solomon king and that great treasure lies beneath the waters. Others say terrible things happened here, atrocities and disappearances at the hands of cannibal giants, and those who venture there do not return. It is cursed. Which is exactly what attracts the attention of husband-and-wife treasure-hunting team Sam and Remi Fargo. How could they resist?

The Third Gate: A Novel

Under the direction of famed explorer Porter Stone, an archaeological team is secretly attempting to locate the tomb of an ancient pharaoh who was unlike any other in history. Stone believes he has found the burial chamber of King Narmer, the near mythical god-king who united upper and lower Egypt in 3200 B.C., and the archaeologist has reason to believe that the greatest prize of all - Narmer's crown - might be buried with him. No crown of an Egyptian king has ever been discovered, and Narmer's is the elusive crown of the two Egypts.

Publisher's Summary

Wyman Ford is back again in The Kraken Project, the thrilling new novel from New York Times best-selling author Douglas Preston.

NASA is building a probe to be splashed down in the Kraken Mare, the largest sea on Saturn’s great moon, Titan. It is one of the most promising habitats for extraterrestrial life in the solar system, but the surface is unpredictable and dangerous, requiring the probe to contain artificial intelligence software. To this end, Melissa Shepherd, a brilliant programmer, has developed "Dorothy", a powerful, self-modifying AI whose true potential is both revolutionary and terrifying. When miscalculations lead to a catastrophe during testing, Dorothy flees into the Internet.

Former CIA agent Wyman Ford is tapped to track down the rogue AI. As Ford and Shepherd search for Dorothy, they realize that her horrific experiences in the wasteland of the Internet have changed her in ways they can barely imagine. And they’re not the only ones looking for the wayward software: The AI is also being pursued by a pair of Wall Street traders, who want to capture her code and turn her into a high-speed trading bot. Traumatized, angry, and relentlessly hunted, Dorothy has an extraordinary revelation - and devises a plan. As the pursuit of Dorothy converges on a deserted house on the coast of Northern California, Ford must face the ultimate question: Is rescuing Dorothy the right thing? Is the AI bent on saving the world…or on wiping out the cancer that is humankind?

What happened to the old Douglas Preston who could be relied upon to turn out interesting and compelling novels written for adults? Not that his prior Wyman Ford books were that well-done, but this one really fell apart. In my opinion, his best work is with co-author Lincoln Child.

This novel starts out with promise--and made me want to read more. It is all about "The Kraken Project" and the great experiment in space with AI- HOWEVER, the remaining 95% of the story has nothing to do with "The Kraken Project." Very misleading title.

The entire book reads like a very YA story to me, as there is a lot of teenage type interaction between a boy and his robot, and very tame dialogue throughout. Nothing wrong with that--if that is what you are looking for.

Also, Scott Sower's narration didn't work for this book-- however, I don't think any narrator could really have made it better. The writing is just not very good.

There are many issues with this book and while it is not the worst of the his solos novels (that would be Blasphemy) it is right down at the bottom of the barrel. (minor spoilers)First off, if you work with engineering or developing software your suspension of disbelief is going to have to do some heavy lifting. The AI is pretty much a fanciful creation. He does attempt explain why such an AI is impossible but he can't deliver on how the AI is able to over come these intractable issues to be conscious. Oh, he does give a reason ("one simple trick") but it is super super silly.

Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez handle the concept much better.

Second, the antagonists in the story was super weak. In this case, all readers' suspension of disbelief will have to do some heavy lifting. (again spoilers). I found it hard to believe that the Wall Street banker was so smart to make a billion dollars but also so stupid to kill people he had meet and other people new he had met. They left so much evidence behind it was just absurd. This is just an example of some week writing. It would be much more interesting for the bad guys to figure out ways of killing people that would draw less attention to themselves. Plotting is import.

I like Wyman but it seams with each book we get less of him. He wasn't necessary for this story at all. He seemed like a tourist.

Preston attempted to give the other characters some depth but I never bought it. Most of his characters were pretty unlikable or annoying or worse just plain boring.

I did like seeing Tom Broadbent back again. Also I thought reader was pretty good. And thankfully it was short; speed listened to it a day.

Yes. I would not read it. Preston fans are going to like it regardless, but honestly this is not a very good book. I felt like I had mistakenly picked a YA novel to read. Wyman Ford is little more than a cardboard character, something that Preston and Child seem to have also done in "White Fire" with Pendergast recently. Good fiction of this genre pushes credulity but does not break it. "Kraken" crushes credulity with an unbelievable 2 gigabyte automaton who seems magically able to move its code around at will. And her pet code-dog. If you want to read a well-done code intelligence gone awry novel, read Daniel Suarez's "Daemon" and its sequel "Freedom."

Would you ever listen to anything by Douglas Preston again?

Probably not.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Scott Sowers?

Possibly. When his reading becomes animated, he is entertaining, and his voice has a raspy quality that makes it interesting. This reading suggests that Sowers might have studied at the Scott Brick School of Awkward Pauses.

Much as I tried to like this audiobook, the AI persona just didn't work for me. The author attributed waaay too much colloquial trash talkin' in the Dorothy character.

Also, the "science" through which the AI becomes conscious just seemed way too convenient. I mean, when the catalyst for a new form of consciousness is hand-waved into existence by simply stating "one little trick" in the programming, and adverbs such as "somehow," describing the method of creation, then I have to feel more time could've been spent in the "science" part of the fiction.

The pretense of the book was interesting and I was eagerly awaiting the arrival. Then it came, I have listened to many Preston books, some good, some great, never bad... until now. The first part was confusing, later it became childish, the chase scene was ineffectual and boring. The narrator's voices were bland and irritating at times. The concept was good, the delivery bad. I forced myself to listen to the end and while it set a good stage for a sequel, it was about the only good I found.

Would you ever listen to anything by Douglas Preston again?

Only in hopes of proving this to be simply a mistake.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Scott Sowers?

Pretty much anyone

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I've read a bunch of DP's books, both solo & with L Childs, but this is definitely not one of the winners. I agree with a number of reviewers who said it seems like a YA novel, at least in many parts. None of the characters (including Dorothy, and her little dog [?!] too) seemed particularly believable, & the kiss request was just idiotic & creepy. I found the kid so incredibly obnoxious that I kept fervently hoping he'd get killed off; yes, I know teenagers can be a trial, and he did have tough things to deal with (like the foot thing*), but it is possible to write a problematic character without having him be so loathsome that the reader prays for his death. Of course, the fact that his parents were also utterly intolerable caused me to cut him a teeny bit of slack, but they were another problem. I must say, Preston has a knack for creating characters which I absolutely cannot stand; some of the jerks in this book make me think that he's responsible for certain characters in the books he wrote with Childs...the reporter Smithback in many of the Pendergast books springs to mind...the kid in this one could be his clone in obnoxiousness.

Preston showed a serious lack of imagination with having two different characters bring somebody out of hiding with the exact same trick-- pretending to abuse something the target cared about. I kept waiting for Ford to mention that he'd learned the trick from the first instance, but it was presented like "what a great idea!" --twice.

Overall, the plot was beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. Could a computer program really hide the way Dorothy did at the end? Perhaps I just don't understand the physics of computing well enough, but I didn't buy it, along with quite a few other things. The dialogue was rather doubtful at times, also.

Sowers did a decent job with what he had to work with. At least he didn't do what the guy who read the Dresden Files did on the first book, which was give vent to these humongous sighs at intervals, like reading the book was the worst thing he'd ever had to trudge through (he either got more interested as the books went along, or learned to suffer in silence).

*granted, I know nothing about surfing, but I had real problems with him never being able to surf again because one leg was shorter than the other. What a weenie! People surf without arms, with 1 1/2 legs, with no legs... there's a picture of a guy without arms OR legs riding a board with a girl with one arm, fa cryin' out loud! Okay, they're not shooting the pipe (or whatever it's called) on a monster 40 foot wave, but sheesh!

I'm giving this a star because the premise - the first chapter - was excellent. The remainder is just silly;. I have read several books by Preston, but this is the last.

What was most disappointing about Douglas Preston’s story?

The AI, "Dorothy", was totally unbelievable: the "Plan X from Outer Space" of computer intelligence stories. . When I read a story, I don't mind stretching to accept some questionable premises, but I cannot totally suspend logic. Superman, Spider-Man , and the Hulk were all far more believable than Dorothy.

What does Scott Sowers bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

If I had read the book instead of listened to it, I would have imagined a ten-year-old author and narrator. Scott did a en excellent job, not giggling even once.

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